Louise Meanwell appears in court on Tuesday
Yankees GM likely not only one to breathe a sigh of relief
Buxom blond Louise Meanwell walked handcuffed into Manhattan Criminal Court Tuesday, and you could see how a smart guy like Yankees general manager Brian Cashman might have been fooled by her.
For a little while.
Until the threatening texts started coming by the hundreds.
Prosecutor Eric Iverson claims the 36-year-old woman cyberstalked Cashman and tried to extort $15,000 out of him.
Meanwell has said she was in a 10-month affair with the Bombers exec after he and his wife, Mary, separated. Cashman denies any relationship.
Yet he wrote her $6,000 worth of checks after she claimed she'd become pregnant and had gotten an abortion.
In scores of harassing texts, she warned that she would go public with the information. Meanwell's mother later told Cashman her daughter hadn't even been pregnant, and together they called 911 at the advice of her psychiatrist, who worried she was a danger to herself and to others.
When the unemployed saleswoman was arrested Feb. 1, it was outside her luxury Tribeca building, where one-bedrooms run $5,100 and residents are treated to a concierge, an outdoor whirlpool and a fireplace lounge.
But on Tuesday, as Meanwell nervously looked around the courtroom, her lawyer Alan Abramson said she was unable to come up with $200,000 bail.
Judge Alexander Tisch decided to waive her indictment deadline, and he sent Meanwell back to jail on Rikers Island for a minimum of two weeks.
If Cashman breathed a sigh of relief, he undoubtedly wasn't the only one.
No fewer than 13 people have filed orders of protection against Meanwell - who also uses the last name Neathway - since 1998.
The astonishing list of those who want Meanwell to stay far away from them includes Cashman; Cashman's wife; Cashman's two young children; Cashman's alleged mistress Kimberley Brennan, Meanwell's ex-boyfriend, Wall Streeter Thomas Walsh; another ex-boyfriend in New Jersey; and Meanwell's psychiatrist, Charlotte Murphy.
Meanwell's ex-husband, Jason Bump, his current wife and his mother also have orders of protection. Bump also filed one on behalf of the teenage daughter he has with Meanwell. He has full custody of the teen.
Judge Tisch added to the list on Tuesday, barring Meanwell from going near Brennan's two children.
"She's a very dangerous person ... a psychopath, in my estimation," Bump told a reporter last week.
Bump's mother, Mary, said in a 2010 deposition that one night Meanwell called her nine times, testifying, "She told me she wished I would just die of cancer."
Bump's current wife, Casey, said in her 2010 deposition that Meanwell threatened, "Better know your boundaries, or you will end up with a bullet in your head, just like your mother-in-law."
"I am fearful," former boyfriend Thomas Walsh told cops in 2010. "I have no idea what she might do."
Facebook extended her reach, where she told Brennan, "Keep away from Brian," and accused her of breaking up Cashman's family to get at his money.
What next, a rabbit in a pot of boiling water?
Meanwell had no comment Tuesday.
In other cases, judges have slapped Meanwell's pretty manacled wrists and only given her probation. But she hasn't gotten the message.
She was just two weeks away from having harassment charges cleared in Walsh's case, after a judge had told her, "Stay out of trouble, and don't get arrested."
Tuesday, Judge Tisch reactivated that case. And when her trial begins, he'll have to consider whether Meanwell is a danger to herself, to Cashman and to others.
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